NOVEMBER 12, 1956

CHICAGO—As the returns come in it is quite evident the people of the country repudiated the
Republican party while electing President Eisenhower by an overwhelming vote. This
means that two years or four years from now the Republicans will not have the strength
they had in this election.

At the same time, there will be room for great improvement in our state organization.
Much more attention should now be paid to the suburban areas, where the vote is increasing.
Even the New York City organization shows up as extremely weak in these incoming reports.
While there are some who believe that the Liberal party ties the Democrats up with
ADA and a too liberal point of view, others realize that many candidates would have
lost without the Liberal party vote. To lose its support would therefore be a serious
drawback. Personally, I think the Democratic party is due for a sad awakening if it
is not as liberal as the Liberal party. The only appeal the Democrats have is to liberals,
since those who want to be really reactionary will obviously vote for the Republican
party.

I was sorry to see that the state did not vote the bond issue for medium-priced housing.
It is a good thing to continue building roads and I voted for both bond issues. But
I feel that the housing bond issue was very much needed, for it is becoming harder
and harder to get medium-priced housing. I think we should give more attention to
housing altogether. Now that we must make the effort to have integrated housing not
only in slum areas but in the medium-priced areas, it is not likely we can accomplish
it without some assistance from the state.

At the recent annual meeting of the American Cancer Society 1,300 men and women came
to New York from all parts of the United States to "discuss, evaluate and plan" their
continuing fight against cancer. It is good to know that the death rate from cancer has dropped significantly. Today one out of every three patients is being
saved, which means that 30,000 each year are being saved from death by cancer.

The trouble is that this is not good enough, for we are told that actually this death
rate should be cut in half. It is all a question apparently of early diagnosis and
treatment, which should be available to more and more people. Of course, we need education
-- education of all kinds of people, not just of doctors and scientists.

There will be cancer drives this year all over the country to acquaint more people with the problem of cancer, and I hope that
we will do well in the New York area.